India

The Indian government is getting more active in seeking out bilateral trade agreements, mainly with other so-called developing countries.

Delhi has signed limited free trade agreements with Sri Lanka (1998) and Thailand (2003) plus a number of preferential trade agreements (tariff concession schemes) with countries/blocs such as Afghanistan, Nepal, Chile and Mercosur.

At the end of June 2005, the government signed a Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement with Singapore, what many consider India’s first "comprehensive" FTA. India expects to upgrade its pact with Sri Lanka into a similar type of Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement. India signed FTAs with ASEAN (2009), Korea (2009) and Japan (2010) as well.

Currently, bilateral FTA negotiations are going on with Australia, the GCC, Bangladesh, Canada, Colombia, Israel, New Zealand, Uruguay, Venezuela and Mauritius. Further down the line, the government is in various stages of considering talks with Indonesia, Malaysia, China, Korea, Egypt, SACU (Southern African Customs Union), Russia and Hong Kong.

In 2007/2008, India commenced FTA talks with European powerhouses EFTA and the EU. In 2010, it began talks with New Zealand and in 2011 with Australia. Since 2013, India has also been negotiating the mega-regional RCEP (Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership) agreement with the 10 ASEAN nations, Australia, China, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea. These are the deals that are generating the most controversy and resistance at home.

India is also part of SAFTA (the South Asia FTA), BIMSTEC (aiming to develop an FTA), the Asia-Pacific Trade Agreement (a preferential trade agreement with Bangladesh, China, Laos, South Korea and Sri Lanka) and IBSA (the India-Brazil-South Africa triangle aiming to develop a trilateral South-South FTA).

India’s growing business community is lobbying for an India-US FTA, but for the moment Washington and Delhi are still building their bilateral relations through a possible investment treaty as well as smaller sectorial deals.

In 2017, Delhi expects to start talks on a trade deal with the Russia-led Eurasia Economic Union.

Apart from these trade deals, India has signed 82 bilateral investment agreements with a wide array of countries. Following a few controversial investor-state disputes (ISDS), India released a revised model BIT in December 2015, which will serve as a basis for future negotiations and should replace existing treaties. This new model tries to achieve more balance by, for instance, requiring investors to use local courts before turning to international arbitration and leaving out the highly contested provision on “fair and equitable treatment”. The adoption of the country’s new model text has been holding up on-going negotiations, such as those towards a US-India BIT.

India and Thailand have agreed to moved faster in the direction of a free trade area (FTA) by reducing by half their applied levels of tariffs on 82 select commodities. This comes into effect from September 1, 2004.

Assuring all help to the auto component industry in dealing with free trade agreements (FTAs) and regional trade agreements (RTAs), the Government on Wednesday said formalities for setting up an R&D centre for the industry would be completed soon.

A delegation of members of the Southern Region Office of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) representing a variety of business enterprises called on Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar at the Ministry of Foreign affairs on August 31.

India must incorporate special provisions for the chemical, petrochemical and textile sectors in its free trade agreements (FTAs) with other countries as a steady decline in tariffs in these sectors is exposing domestic players to unfair competition, says a draft report on FTAs prepared by the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Thursday made his maiden foray into the foreign policy realm by announcing a review of the various Foreign Trade Agreements (FTAs) signed by the previous BJP-led NDA government.

Bangkok and New Delhi are looking forward to developing further linkages in the areas of tourism and hospitality to widen economic co-operation under the Thailand-India bilateral free-trade agreement, according to high-ranking representatives of both countries.

Ahead of India preparing to sign a free trade agreement (FTA) with the
Mercosur group of countries, the vegetable oil and food industries have
cautioned the government to work out the arrangement keeping in mind the
interests of domestic industry.

India is seeking to amend bilateral trade treaties with foreign countries by diluting international protection agreements - a move which will provide the government respite against any international arbitration, a la Dabhol or Maruti.

bilaterals.org is a collaborative space to share information and support movements struggling against bilateral trade and investment deals which serve corporations, not people. Multilingual. Global. No one owns it. Open publishing. Get involved.